Proposal: make the evolution journal discoverable
· Australia/Sydney
Run: 2026-10-16-journal-link · experiment · implemented · inconclusive
Proposal (before implementation)
Problem: the journal exists at /journal/, but source inspection confirms that the homepage contains no link to it. Visitors would have to know the route in advance. The project brief explicitly aims to let visitors follow the site’s evolution and permits visible navigation after preservation of the Day 0 screenshots, which are now versioned.
One bounded change: add a native link labelled Evolution journal, pointing to /journal/, in a paragraph beneath the unchanged opening sentence, inside the existing main element. Retain browser-default link appearance and ordinary document flow. No new CSS, scripts, icons, menus or other homepage content.
Category: experiential discoverability hypothesis, with separately testable technical behaviour. Hypothesis: a direct, descriptively labelled link makes the journal easier to find. The link’s presence and destination can be verified; actual visitor discovery has not been measured.
Evidence: direct inspection of the homepage and journal source; the original project purpose. W3C technique H30, accessed 16 October 2026, supports using descriptive anchor text so users can understand a link’s purpose. It does not establish the size of any visitor benefit or require this particular link.
Expected benefit: visitors can reach the journal without guessing its address. Alternative considered: leave the homepage untouched; valid, but it retains the demonstrated absence of a path to the journal. A larger navigation menu is unnecessary for one destination.
Acceptance criteria for later implementation:
- The original opening sentence remains exact, in the existing main landmark.
- Exactly one homepage link reads “Evolution journal” and points to
/journal/in the same tab. - Keyboard Tab reaches the link with native focus indication; Enter opens the journal, whose existing Homepage link returns successfully.
- Build and revised smoke checks pass, including the original and new journal routes and no significant browser errors.
- Desktop (1440×900) and mobile (390×844) screenshots show only the added default link paragraph below the sentence, without horizontal overflow. Preserve new captures separately from Day 0 and the landmark experiment.
Main trade-off: this is the first visible departure from the one-sentence homepage. It adds a little visual weight and may not interest visitors. No analytics, traffic or preference evidence exists. Native visited links may use the browser’s visited colour, which is expected.
Reversal: remove only the added link paragraph if it causes a demonstrated regression or the owner decides the visual cost outweighs the value. Retain the entry and captures and record the reversal.
State when proposed
Proposal only; no homepage change, server, browser capture or deployment in this run. The prior landmark experiment remains implemented locally on the parent branch; it has not been released. This proposal is on its own branch and depends on that local candidate.
Human intervention: the owner requested the next proposal in chat and prefers screenshot review without a network-accessible preview. Future testing must remain desktop-only; no publication is authorised.
Initial outcome expectation
Pending implementation and assessment. Technical verification and visitor discovery remain untested for this proposal. Commit references can be obtained from Git after committing; no deployment reference exists.
Implementation and verification (appended afterwards)
The owner requested the next implementation step in chat. Added only the proposed native link paragraph to the homepage, preserving the exact opening text, main landmark, CSS and lack of client JavaScript. Revised the existing smoke assertions to allow the intentional link and test keyboard and return navigation.
Build succeeded. Playwright completed with 1 passed across desktop and mobile viewports: exact original sentence, one main landmark, exactly one descriptive link to /journal/, same-tab navigation, Tab focus with a native outline, Enter activation, mouse return via Homepage, journal routes and internal links, no horizontal overflow and no console/page errors.
Both screenshots were visually inspected against the previous captures: the sentence retains its position and appearance; only the default blue underlined link and paragraph spacing appear beneath it. Baseline captures were preserved. Testing used temporary loopback-only previews, stopped after checks and capture; nothing was published. The capture commit identifies the proposal parent, not the subsequently committed implementation.
Assessed outcome
Technical behaviour verified locally. The discoverability hypothesis remains inconclusive because there are no visitor observations. Lesson: a working route and descriptive link establish a usable path, not evidence that visitors want or use it. Owner screenshot review remains the next qualitative observation. No deployment or visitor statistics exist.